Life & Love

My first husband was a plant. We were wed in my mother’s living room in Los Angeles, with a large Panasonic flat screen TV serving as the backdrop. I wore a bright red sari. Convinced that her 30 year old, still-single daughter was cursed, my mother had arranged the whole affair. She believed that I

Get to know 10 groups working in Canada and around the world to better the lives of women, girls and assigned-female people Every year on International Women’s Day, we’re flooded with inspirational stories about women around the world—the ones who have blazed trails for others, the ones who fight to change policy, the ones who

Ontario premier Doug Ford was elected on a platform that promised to find billions of dollars in efficiencies in Ontario’s provincial budget. For a year after he and his majority Conservative government were sworn in, FLARE kept a running tally on what exactly the Ford government cut (or said they intended to cut) and what the consequences

Has COVID-19 reached a tipping point? The World Health Organization is reporting that it has spread to 77 countries, and the global total number of cases is more than 93,000. More than 85 percent of those cases are in China, and most of the others are in the Republic of Korea, Italy and Iran. Of course, Canada

(Photo: Getty Images; Illustration: Maegan Fidelino) Update: On February 20, it was announced that Victoria’s Secret had been sold. The company, which has been under the ownership of L Brands since 1982, was acquired by Sycamore Partners, a private equity firm. Per Fashionista, Sycamore acquired 55% of the $1.1 billion business. In addition to the

A recent photo of Markie Dell, now 26. She was trafficked as a teenager when a coworker invited her to a night out at a club in Toronto, a ploy to put the 19-year-old in her debt. Dell was forced to make her pimps $1000 a day by dancing at strip clubs—and worse. (Photo: courtesy

(Photo: Getty) Update: Disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty on two charges. On February 24, after five days of deliberation, a Manhattan jury delivered their verdict, finding Weinstein guilty of a criminal sex act in the first degree (for a 2006 assault on production assistant Mimi Haleyi) and third-degree rape (for the

Last week, an ad depicting a postpartum mother was banned from airing during the Oscars. It was created by Frida Mom, a company offering products to new moms, with the aim of demystifying postpartum recovery. ABC and the Academy Awards, however, ruled the ad “too graphic” for network TV. In it, we see a woman

Signage at the Unist’ot’en camp near Houston, B.C., on Wednesday, January 9, 2019 (Photo: Canadian Press) If you’ve been online or watched the news over the past few days, it’s impossible that you haven’t heard about the conflict on Wet’suwet’en territory. On February 6, in the early hours of the morning, RCMP officials outside of Houston,

I didn’t expect a stupid internet fight to alter the course of my life, but in 2016, a lot of my relationships were being torn apart by one man: Bernie Sanders. Politically, I was more liberal than Hillary Clinton, and yet the way people, especially men, talked about her hit a nerve. As a female

(Photo: Getty Images) The Super Bowl LIV halftime show, which featured performances by musical icons Shakira and Jennifer Lopez this year, was major in so many ways. JLo pulled out a huge cape with the American flag on one side and the Puerto Rican flag on the other! Shakira played the drums like a badass! They

(Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz) Aymen Derbali risked his life on January 29, 2017, by standing in the direct line of fire of a gunman who had entered a Quebec City mosque. In his bold attempt to distract the killer, the father of three was shot seven times and left permanently paralyzed. The third anniversary

I’m a sick person. I go to the doctor a lot. I’m not shy about things that I need, or when something doesn’t feel right, and I usually have the language to articulate what I think is going on. I’m almost forty years old! Yet one of the things that is most baffling to me

(Photo: iStock) If you have any faith left in humanity, prepare to have it completely erased. Because judging by the way people are reacting to the coronavirus crisis, most of us are definitely trash. With 170 deaths and thousands of confirmed cases in China, the coronavirus has been on everyone’s mind in recent weeks. ICYMI, the

(Photos: Creative Commons, Amazon) It’s a truth universally acknowledged that kids (like most dads) aren’t super great when it comes to gifting. First of all, they have no money and, second of all, they have even less sense; so it’s no surprise that they would be absolutely trash when it comes to sprinkling their loved

(Photo: Getty) In the days since The New York Times and the New Yorker published investigations exposing Hollywood’s most open secret, multiple women have come forward accusing movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault and in some cases, rape. The incidents take place over nearly three decades in locations all over the globe, but they all seem to follow a

From Whitehouse to St. John’s—and in dozens of cities in between the Yukon and Newfoundland—thousands are expected to gather for the fourth anniversary of the Women’s March. It’s almost four years to the date since millions of people came together in cities both big and small (shout to to Sandy Cove in Nova Scotia) to protest

Before they found the body behind their sorority house, four Delta Gamma Theta sisters went out for ice cream. It was a chilly Wednesday night in late April, but they’d just lost a debate competition, and visiting the Dairy Duchess meant avoiding homework a little bit longer. They were still finishing their cones a few

American runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists in the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics (Photo: Getty Images) On January 9, the International Olympics Committee announced that it’s banning all political protests at the 2020 Summer Games, which are set to be held in Tokyo, Japan from July 24 to August

In 2019, journalist and feminist Lauren Duca wore *a lot* of hats: published author (with the September 2019 release of her book, How to Start a Revolution: Young People and the Future of American Politics), University professor, subject of a now viral BuzzFeed profile (or “hit piece,” as Duca calls it) by writer Scaachi Koul, political activist,

(Photo: Getty) The images of Australia’s out-of-control bush fires resemble something from an apocalyptic film: charred animal remains littering the roadsides, people on once-scenic beaches waiting to be rescued by sea while flames flicker close by, ash coming down like fluffy snowflakes, buildings reduced to dust. They’re distressing to look at but important to see. The

Artists like Megan Thee Stallion are repping for women at Coachella 2020 in a year with few female artists. The official lineup for Coachella 2020 has been announced, and people are talking. We’re not going to pretend the SoCal festival isn’t problematic. Its founder has donated to anti-LGBTQ senators and organizations, and it’s usually pretty

(Photos: Getty Images) We’re only three days into 2020 and already the world is (literally) burning around us. First, there are the severe bushfires that continue to ravage parts of Australia; and now World War III is trending on Twitter and Google. Jan 1st: New decade going fairly well, all things considered. Jan 2nd: Australia appears to

Tired of superficial swipe culture? There’s an app for that. Unlike Hinge, Bumble, and Tinder, brand new online dating service S’More (which stands for “something more”) prioritizes conversation over selfies. This is how it works: Users receive recommended profiles each day chosen specifically for them by an algorithm that factors in values, passions, preferences, and